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137 7 COCHLEAR-IMPLANTED CHILDREN IN SWEDEN’S BILINGUAL SCHOOLS Kristina Svartholm A growing number of deaf children with cochlear implants are entering Swedish schools for deaf students. Although many parents are choosing a cochlear implant for their deaf children, Swedish parents also call for Swedish Sign Language to be used in these schools. This chapter sets out the dilemma that the special schools face. The central question considered here is whether it is possible for one and the same school to offer a language setting that will suit all deaf children, with or without a cochlear implant, or will one of these two groups of children be the loser. The knowledge gained from more than two decades of sign language research and bilingual educational practices in Sweden is vital for our understanding of how to best cope with the new situation created by the increase in childhood implantation. After some years of decline in school enrollment in schools for deaf and hard of hearing students in Sweden,1 a new trend is clearly discernible. There are slightly more children now enrolled in schools for deaf students than in the previous three to five years. One explanation put forward by the National Agency for Special Schools for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (Specialskolemyndigheten; SPM) is that parents of children with cochlear implants seem to be choosing schools with a signing setting to a larger extent than before. These parents want their children to develop bilingualism in Swedish (spoken and written) and Swedish Sign Language (see Preisler this volume). Another explanation is that the special schools are now seeing a number of older students who have a greater need for sign language than first expected when their parents chose local school placement among hearing children (SPM 2004). This situation clearly puts new demands on the schools for deaf students. There is a steadily growing group of children with cochlear implants whose parents expect not only bilingualism, as traditionally provided by the schools, but also speech training and use of spoken language. This expectation presupposes a new pedagogical approach that is somewhat different from the way schools for deaf students in Sweden have worked over the past twenty to twenty-five years. The situation is further complicated by Sweden’s small population. The number of children born deaf or with a hearing impairment (severe enough to require the use of hearing aids) is approximately 200 annually. Of this number, approximately fifty to sixty deaf and hard of hearing children are enrolled at each grade level in special schools for deaf students around Sweden.2 Despite the growing number of children with implants who are attending schools for deaf students in Sweden, the vast majority of children enrolled in these schools are deaf students without implants. Even if this group successively 138 KRISTINA SVARTHOLM becomes smaller because of the large number of implant operations being conducted in Sweden, there will always be those who remain deaf and are not implanted for one reason or another. These children must be guaranteed continuing access to bilingual education to develop Swedish Sign Language and written Swedish language proficiency, the kind of bilingual program that has been so successful in developing these skills in the past. It is a delicate task for the schools to combine this kind of bilingual program with an education for deaf children with implants for whom speech and hearing are important. Another group, older children who need remedial teaching, require a bilingual program that targets not only language development but also development of knowledge that has been missed earlier in their schooling. Moreover, it can be expected that many of these children will need extra support to restore their self-esteem and to establish a strong identity after having “failed” among hearing children in regular schools. One option to accommodate the differing needs of implanted and nonimplanted children would be to create two separate and different types of schools, but ones in which sign language holds a prominent position. This effort would be rather difficult to carry out. Dividing the population in this way would mean that the number of children in each type of school would probably be so small that it would be difficult to maintain a satisfactory signing environment. Besides, this kind of accommodation is not what parents want when they choose a special school for their child. Instead, developmental work must take place to make the bilingual schools for deaf students in Sweden work as well for...

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